The present invention relates generally to discounting and promotion of goods and services to consumers, and, more particularly, to the electronic distribution of promotions, such as discounts, rebates and special prices for goods and services, and the subsequent resolution upon the redemption of the promotions by consumers.
Heretofore, consumer discounts on specific goods or services have been in the form of physical tokens or coupons by which a consumer can obtain a discount on the price of a good or a service by redeeming the coupon. Typically, paper coupons are physically distributed to consumers. For instance, coupons are often distributed with newspapers, or by blanket mailing to residents of a neighborhood or region. Coupons are sometimes distributed with items so that purchasers are encouraged to continue their purchases of the item, i.e., to encourage brand loyalty.
More recent forms of coupon distribution have attempted to better target the potential purchasers of particular items. For example, coupons are placed on the back of store purchase receipts, such as those at supermarkets, so that the coupons target those who actively shop. The coupons can be changed at the stores to quickly respond to changes in marketing campaigns. Another form of coupon distribution takes advantage of the computerization of sales networks. When a sale of a particular item is entered on a Universal Product Code (UPC) reader at a store, such as a supermarket, a coupon For the same item or family of items may be created for the purchaser to ensure brand loyalty. Alternatively, the coupon may be for a competing band to encourage "brand-switching." Because the UPC reader is typically part of a large computer network, the distribution of the coupons can be changed or terminated very quickly.
Nonetheless, the problems of paper coupons still remain. Besides the distribution of coupons, the expense of the administration for the redemption of the coupons is high. Fraud remains a problem in coupon redemption and the targeting of consumers for particular goods and services can still be improved. Even electronic coupon distribution requires complex actions on the part of the consumer, such as printing a coupon or token, and taking it to a store for redemption. In the ideal case, electronic discounts should only require that a consumer who can be uniquely identified by a retailer be optionally subjected to some form of advertising prior to a discounted purchase. The discount should be implemented completely automatically at the cash register.
Furthermore, from the producer's and retailer's standpoint, the targeting of consumers remains difficult and expensive. Ideally, a database of all consumers would allow the precise targeting of advertisements, discounts or special prices being a form of advertisement, to individual consumers. The effectiveness of customer targeting would be maximized so that promotion money is spent where it is effective and not spent when it is ineffective. To that end, producers and retailers have used emerging technologies to identify consumers and their purchasing interests. Surveys using modern polling techniques have helped create such consumer databases, and computers have been used to correlate buying patterns of customers through store loyalty cards, for example.
However, such consumer identification remains elusive and expensive. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, such goals of consumer identification are repugnant to notions of individual privacy. With the increased linking of computers by electronic networks, such concerns are likely to increase. Besides the individual resistance to divulging personal information, legal restraints on the use and gathering of personal information are possible, if not likely.
The present invention provides for a system and method which addresses these privacy concerns in a flexible way, while providing for the possibility of effective consumer targeting and automated discounting. The most appropriate discounts or other promotions are directed toward the individual consumer, yet the anonymity of the consumer is preserved. The present invention eliminates the paper coupon or its electronic counterpart, and is highly resistant to fraud. No paper coupons are handled by the consumer, the merchant, the manufacturer of the goods, or provider of the service.
Once the consumer is identified (with varying degrees of privacy protection) in accordance with the present invention, conventional forms of advertising may be directed precisely toward the consumer. The present invention allows the consumer's buying patterns to enable the targeting of the consumer with special discounts or prices on the goods or services he or she might buy. This targeting of promotions will also generally take into consideration factors beyond the simple interest of the consumer, such as the product cost and the consumer's sensitivity to discounted prices, which enable the producer and retailer to eliminate wasteful promotional spending.
In addition to facilitating the targeting of consumers individually by their purchasing habits, the present invention also permits the consumer to view their total buying history. This is not a feature currently available at the level of retail sales. While credit card companies today track purchases at the store level, purchases at the level of individual items are not tracked. The ability of a consumer to track his or her total consumption history is a unique feature of the current invention.
The present invention also permits the aggregation of several kinds of discounts. For example, a retailer loyalty program may offer a discount on an item, and a manufacturer may offer a discount on the same or a different item. The present invention permits a unified display and reconciliation of both discounts; in the former case by adding two discounts on the same item, and in the latter case, by displaying both discounts to the same consumer account.